Could France Have Stopped Hitler?

Hitler's remilitarization of the Rhineland o n 7 March 1936 figures in conventional historiography as one of the turning points in interwar diplomacy. At a stroke the Nazi leader rid his country of the last remaining symbol of inequality visited upon Germany by the Ver- sailles treaty and transformed the strategic balance o n the European continent. Once his army had secured and fortified the western frontiers, Hitler could t u r n his attention to the east and southeast- to Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland-with his trepidation about interference substantially diminished. I n the last generation the dramatic aspects of this crisis have drawn the attention of numerous hist0rians.l Few, however, have challenged the notion derived from